Get your soul sanctified on the Kanye West JESUS IS KING thread

i genuinely don't believe Kanye has done anything even close to "kind of interesting" since Yeezus.

the life of pablo was an incoherent mess of an album but i'd easily give it "kind of interesting" and it still had some pretty good moments. it was very much the beginning of the end with kanye's quality control though

See TLOP was the last Kanye album I actually spent time trying to get a handle on, but I never could do it and thought it was really bad. I listened to Ye once, but basically gave up after that and never heard Jesus is King at all. The MAGA shit just sealed the deal that I don't even have to pretend to be interested in where he is right now, beyond hoping he is getting some level of professional help.

the life of pablo was an incoherent mess of an album but i'd easily give it "kind of interesting" and it still had some pretty good moments. it was very much the beginning of the end with kanye's quality control though

Same here. It's not a great album, but it's interesting with merit, and unless Kanye turns it around, it'll be the last one he's done that I'll play in its entirety.

I like that he's trying to say something. He hasn't found the words yet, though, as evidenced by the many long segments of him repeating the same koan over and over.

Musically, quite dull.

^^

which gets to the heart of my distaste for everything post Yeezus. the lyrics and rapping were always hit or miss, when not being outright cringeworthy. once the production fell off there was nothing worth listening for, ime.

his tracks now, actually Otis was the first time I really noticed, but they don't feel minimal rather undercooked. Everytime you make a song there's that initial germ of an idea - a little riff, or drum pattern, or brief melody, or sample, etc - but they need to be developed into an actual song, his stuff now just seems like he gets that little hint of an idea and says ok it's done that's the track

i think he is trying to separate himself from other hip-hop producers by making tracks that "show the seams" and frustrate listeners' expectations. not saying this is genius -- it could easily be seen as a cheap ploy for an "arty" or modernist effect. but that's why i think his stuff sounds like this now.

have you considered it doesn't mean anything, that he's just unable to finish things properly?

like the album "jesus is king" ends super abruptly in a way that feels insane and almost like a parody of everything that came before it.

i dropped into kanyetothe (always fun on a fake release date) and learned about this collab he did with Teenage Engineering that was supposedly in use last night.

https://lindynews.org/10131/entertainment/new-kanye-west-stem-players-leaked-online/

i think the recent albums actually sound cool from a production standpoint and he attempts to grapple with difficult emotional terrain. the big problem is that many listeners are not going to extend patience and good will to him now for a whole bunch of reasons. i think these are fair and good reasons, honestly -- who cares about the travails of a narcissist with a persecution complex? much less one who supported trump? but these concerns aren't really him falling off as a producer or rapper.

i would never recommend "jesus is king" or "ye" to someone. but i have found them both to be rewarding listening experiences.

honestly I think that line of thinking, an army of writers, hangers on, starfuckers, online stans, insisting each half baked pinch loaf (to borrow a phrase) of an album, every 7-year-old with Photoshop level $300 t-shirt design, every horrid "HR Giger designing $49.99 JC Penney grandpa New Balances" Yeezys is actually profoundly terrible and propping up a very obviously sick man for profit and "content" for the social media gristmill

He can still be a great producer - he's still producing great records, but none for himself.

yeah, i see that too.

i felt like "jesus is king" was an interesting failure. like, it's a turn to christianity, there is an acknowledgement that narcissism has poisoned him, he wants to turn to a higher power. but then all he finds is this very american, i guess i would say degraded form of christianity that is just another way to worship the self. so he just finds the same old path again, the one that leads to despair.

i think of kanye as like robert lowell or something, creating artistic failures that reflect his own personal failures. but maybe he is less self-aware of this process? he skates around the idea that he is unhappy and that he is holding onto illusions. but he always seems to get close, i guess. there is enough hope in there to make the enterprise not totally grim.

xp

Matt consistently otm

but yeah, squint, look at it from another angle, and he is just the hip hop version of trump. america has a long tradition of these kind of sloppy figures, these people who are at once abject and grandiose, who channel the fears and aspirations of the public, but this might just be a sick tradition. he gains nothing by believing himself to be a "genius" or a "prophet" (he's compared himself to st. paul). and like, america is a dumb country to the extent that we encourage people to take up similarly grand and unrealistic ideas about themselves.

KANYE WEST WILL MOVE THE RELEASE DATE OF DONDA TO AUGUST 6TH. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE ❤️ HE WANTS TO GIVE HIS FANS THE BEST POSSIBLE PRODUCT WITHOUT RUSHING ANYTHING. HE LOVES YALL WITH ALL OF HIS HEART. GOD BLESS 🙏🏾 #DONDA #RESPECTFULLY

— Respectfully Justin (@JustinLaboy) July 24, 2021

It’s never coming out

it'll come out in a few months and still seem obviously unfinished

Gap execs must be getting ulcers.

Chinese Dondacracy

He and Lana Del Rey are in a race not to finish and release their new records.

https://www.revolt.tv/news/2021/7/23/22590491/atlanta-proclaims-july-22-kanye-west-day

Ffs

Lana Del Rey?

They both missed recent album release deadlines.

LDR has released good albums in the past decade though.

Ok ok Yeezus and KSG were decent I admit it.

The funny thing about that Kanye West Day thing is that the only source of it seems to be someone sending TMZ a pic of a certificate that he was presented backstage – it hasn't been announced or reported in local Atlanta media, etc. It's like they decided to do it on the DL, for his eyes only.

Yeezus was decent but the idea that kids see ghosts was especially interesting in some way is pure RYM brain

I agree but wanted to avoid the pitchforks. Imho Yeezus is the last thing he did worth anyone’s time.

He and Lana Del Rey are in a race not to finish and release their new records.

Speak to me more of this blessed paradise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sN7kgEw954

yeah i don't get at all why the reddit/rym/fantano etc. axis adores ksg so much, on rym it's got a higher rating than yeezus lol. it's not terrible but it's hardly some kind of masterpiece

lol rym also has ye above watch the throne? come on lol

that's fucking insane

Setting up my turntables while the all ages rock show is still going pic.twitter.com/iSnEDATgar

— Ghostly (@ghostly) July 25, 2021

can think of no better place to finish an album

https://www.tmz.com/2021/07/24/kanye-west-hunkers-down-mercedes-benz-stadium-finish-donda-album/

Living in the venue, you say? Masked, you say? Kanye is going full phantom
https://imaging.broadway.com/images/ipad-show-list-photo/w1470/102183-32.jpg

The phantom of the opera did it first

Lol I see TMZ made that same sort of observation in the article and here I was thinking I had made a good joke.

TMZ did it first.

I have to be honest I find the idea of him living in the stadium hilarious if true.

Do u have Josh muted? lol

Lol when I opened the thread his message was still not posted.

So both TMZ and Josh did it first lol

wtflollllllllll

Honestly this rocks - kanye living in a stadium and wearing the same clothes for days, haven't listened to any of donda, don't know if I will

This man is a content creator